If you ask most people what they want most in life, their answers will often center on the idea of finding happiness. If you ask Alanis Morissette, her answer is slightly different.
When sitting down with Oprah for an episode of "Super Soul Sunday," the Grammy-winning artist expressed her thoughts about various emotions, saying feelings like confusion, anger and fear are just as important as happiness. In fact, Morissette tells Oprah, there is a real danger in chasing happiness above all else.
"I think happiness is a state, and it's a temporary state," Morissette says in the above video. "So, if we're chasing a temporary state, we're setting ourselves up to fail."
She continues, explaining that a singular focus on happiness simply isn't natural. "It's not part of the human invitation, really, to just feel one feeling at any given time," she says.
Rather, Morissette views happiness more like a state of awareness. As various temporary emotions and thoughts cycle through life, she says, it's a sacred practice to be able to sit back and watch everything unfold.
"[Emotions are] like boats to me, and my suffering is dependent upon how quickly I jump into the boat and follow that stream. But if I sit back and watch it, there's some relief," Morissette says. "I wouldn't call it 'happiness.' I would call it 'the bliss or the joy of consciousness.'"
"Super Soul Sunday" airs on OWN on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET, during which it also streams worldwide on Oprah.com, Facebook.com/owntv and Facebook.com/supersoulsunday.
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